Last of Angola 3 inmates waits for word from court on whether he'll go free from prison

NEW ORLEANS – Robert King plans to be there if and when his friend Albert Woodfox is released from behind bars after more than four decades in solitary confinement.

King and Woodfox are the surviving members of the Angola Three.

A judge ordered Woodfox's immediate release this week. State officials, who maintain the 68-year-old Woodfox is dangerous, won an emergency stay to keep him behind bars while both sides argue their case to an appeals court.

The group of three inmates is known for their decades-long stays in isolation in the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.

King was released in 2001, and the third member of the group, Herman Wallace, died in 2013 a few days after a judge granted him a new trial and released him.